


Where Are You?

by Okadiah



Series: Symbrock Thanos Snap Quartet [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Angst, Happy conclusion in chapter 2 I promise, I couldn't stop myself, I'm Sorry, The Thanos Snap, Venom/MCU Crossover, you know what's coming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2019-08-21 18:49:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16582073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Okadiah/pseuds/Okadiah
Summary: Thanos snapped, and no one was left unaffected. Not even Eddie and Venom.Version 1EDIT: HAPPY CONCLUSION ADDED





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So ... I couldn't stop myself. And if you're not in the mood for, uh, a bit of anguish perhaps turn back now because this stings a little and someone IS going to get snapped away. You've been warned.
> 
> Otherwise, I actually really like what I've done here and I hope you do too, despite what's about to happen. Enjoy!

**_We should eat something. I'm hungry._ **

_We just had lunch and excuse me. It was big,_ Eddie replied telepathically as he clung to the cable car’s overhead rail. _I, for one, am not that hungry. You can wait a little while. Besides, you need to give my wallet some time to recover. After all, we're going out for chocolate later, right?_

Venom hummed within Eddie’s mind, but for the moment the argument was settled. Eddie couldn't help a small smile, and he mindlessly swayed with the car as it moved. It was a gorgeous day. Sunny. Bright. Warm. There was nothing on their list of things to do since Eddie had finished and submitted his newest story to the network this morning, and today was all about relaxing. Getting out. Breathing the fresh air as they enjoyed the free time together and maybe looked for a little trouble.

**_Pure chocolate this time, then,_** Venom said. **_No coconut. I hate coconut._**

_At least some should be caramel, Vee._ Eddie could already imagine the buttery smooth taste. _No way am I going to endure bags of pure chocolate_ again _when we could add a little variety._

**_Nothing wrong with pure chocolate,_** Venom replied. **_I guess some could be caramel. It's not terrible, like coconut._**

_Coconut is awesome, and if I were in the mood for it, we’d get some,_ Eddie shot back before swinging himself forward as the cable car came to his stop. A little kid kicked her feet idly as he passed, and he smiled at her. He was in a good mood. This was a great day, and as he stepped onto the sidewalk, a ray of sunshine kissed his face and a faint breeze whispered through his hair, making him feel light.

**_Coconut is_ ** **terrible _, Eddie, and if you had any sense of taste, you'd know that._**

"So says the guy who'd eat heads if I'd let him," Eddie murmured under his breath. He shoved his hands in his pockets, mind melding with Venom's as they planned ahead and played with ideas about where they should go and what they should do next. Behind them, the cable car’s bell chimed as it began moving away.

A high-pitched wail tore through the air, and all at once horns blared and at least three cars crashed. One veered their way, heading fast, but a wave of black surged out of Eddie’s body and stopped it from plowing into him and the other nearby pedestrians. Alarmed by the abrupt activity raging all around them, Eddie turned and saw the cable car was now racing down the hill. A strange dust was flowing out of it like a trail, and the little girl he'd smiled at was shrieking.

"Venom!"

Venom masked him and in a single bound they sailed through the air, landing a moment later to dig their feet into the ground, stopping the runaway car from killing people running and screaming across the road. Pandemonium was everywhere. No matter where they looked, men and women dashed, grasping at each other, frantic and terrified.

The people on the car flooding out, but where it had been crowded a minute ago, now there were only a few of them. The girl was screaming for her mother, crying in a pile of that weird dust before her father hauled her up and bound out. As they did, his shoulder struck a young woman, and to Eddie's horror, she collapsed, but not in the way he'd expected.

She just ... disintegrated. Lost color and flaked away in a burst of lifeless dust. It happened so soundlessly, so smoothly, that if it wasn't for the dust that remained, he'd have wondered if she'd been there at all.

Venom sunk back into his skin as Eddie tried to make sense of the world.

"What the hell—?"

**_Eddie,_** Venom suddenly said, tone blank except at the end where it started to edge with dread. **_Your fingers._**

Unable to stop himself, Eddie stared down at his fingers. They were turning gray. Losing color. Losing feeling. Flaking. Just like the woman who'd crumpled into nothing. Nothing but a pile of dust.

What?

"Vee?"

The feeling was spreading as a strange weakness crawled up his arm and through his body. Eddie blinked rapidly, staggered and tried to regain his equilibrium, but it was like grasping air. He couldn't do it. "What's—?"

**_Eddie!_ **

The panic in Venom's voice was the only thing that grounded him, and he jerked his head up to see that he wasn't the only one flaking away. Thick black tentacles which had whipped about furiously as they'd saved everyone who’d been on the road in the way of the cable car were fading away, turning to dust before their eyes.

Alarm overwhelmed the numb creep in his body.

"Venom,” Eddie exclaimed. “What's happening? Why are we—?"

**_We?_ **

A bolt of awareness blasted through Venom so fast Eddie was left reeling as the sensation barreled through the numbness that kept threatening to take him. Venom's tentacles were mostly gone, but to Eddie's horror instead of withdrawing back into his body to heal him and stop whatever was happening, he felt the symbiote pulling away. Not stretching like he usually did but _unmelding_. Unbinding.

Venom was leaving him.

Before he could shout at his alien, Eddie watched dumbfounded as his fingers reformed. Perfect digits solidified and regained their color. The feeling in his body returned.

**_"It’s me,"_** Venom said as he formed a face. The colorlessness and the flaking spread even faster now. The alien's words were soft and bewildered. " ** _I'm dying."_**

That snapped Eddie out of his fugue and allowed primal terror to spear through him.

"No, no Vee!" Eddie yelled as he watched the rest of his symbiote lose its color and gloss, flake away, only this time without him. "Venom, come back!"

**_"Can't, Eddie,"_** Venom whispered, voice faint and tired. **_"Don't want you to die too."_**

Despite what the alien said, one last, tiny tendril still stretched out for Eddie, the final dark, glossy bit, and Eddie didn't think. He reached out too. He had to stop this. Somehow he _needed_ to save Venom. If he could just grab hold of it again, if he could just get to the symbiote before it flickered away. It wouldn't matter what happened to him. It didn't matter because they were a _we_. There was no me in this. No I. They got through everything together _or not at all_.

Fear appeared in tiny white eyes that began to flake themselves. Eddie's hand grasped. Venom was _right there_.

"Venom!"

**_"Eddie—"_ **

When Eddie's hand closed, it closed on nothing but that strange dust which seemed to have taken almost everyone around him too. A ragged, startled breath jolted his chest, but for a moment be couldn't believe it. There had still been some black there, right at the end. He had reached Venom. He _had_ to have because people, aliens, nothing just-just stopped _existing_.

But as Eddie stared at his hand, he also searched his body. Searched his mind. Searched his heart and soul and every piece of him that Venom had ever touched and made theirs and waited for the alien ingrate to tell him he was okay.

Venom didn't, and horror crept up Eddie's chest and across his face as his blood vanished and left him feeling cold and weak.

"Venom?" he called, but his voice had no strength. It had nothing. He made sure his voice rose higher than all the screaming, all the noise, all the goddamned ringing in his ears as the world threatened to bleach of all sound. "Venom, you fucking parasite, _where are you?_ "

That should have done it. The p-word. He hadn't used it in ages, but Venom should have responded. He would have. _He would have._

But he didn't. Eddie couldn't feel his legs and only felt them again when a sharp rock dug into his knee, making it bleed. He watched it, waiting for the wound to heal, but it didn't. Eddie stared down at his dust-covered palms again and his eyes burned. Terror raged through his body and his hands shook violently.

"Vee?" he wheezed, the world circling around him like a top. "Vee, stop this. Stop this _right now_." His voice roared. "Venom!"

But the dust did nothing more than fade away with of the gentle wind. Venom wasn’t there. Venom was gone.

Eddie was alone.

His voice joined those around him as he screamed.


	2. Conclusion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it took me a while, but here it is! A conclusion to the massive angst found in the first chapter. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy!

Eddie Brock stared at the ceiling of his room in the small apartment he shared with Mrs. Chen. It was dark out. He was alone. A glance at the clock told him he had an hour before dawn. An hour before he had to get up and pretend that the world was still okay. That the life he'd been building was enough, even when it wasn't. Even when the haunted eyes of every person he passed in the street reflected the same _fucking_ thing.

Five years since Thanos had snapped his fingers. _Five long years_ and no one had moved on yet.

Well, that was a lie. Some had. There was no getting back the ones they'd lost. It was impossible. The Avengers who remained, even they'd given up, focusing instead on helping the world recover rather than fix the problem. Every day more and more people he knew were finding ways to get on with their lives. Meet new people. Build new families. Make something out of the shit they'd been left with when half of the world had vanished into dust. People _were_ moving on.

But not him. He _couldn't_. No one understood. Sure, a lot of people had watched as their loved ones faded away. But he'd felt it. He hadn't even had a front-row seat, The Snap had almost taken him too. But Venom. But _Venom—_

Eddie threw the covers off his body, surged to his feet, refused to think because thinking was bad, thinking was the _worst_. Instead, he threw on pants and a shirt. Pocketed his wallet and phone and left his room.

Mrs. Chen was at the stove, waiting for the kettle to finish heating. She didn't look up at him, only continued to frown at the second cup she always made in honor of her missing husband. A cane was clasped in her hand tight. During The Snap, she'd been caught in a terrible crash that had shattered her hip and right leg and left her with a permanent limp. Just like Eddie, she'd lost everything too, and hadn't fought him too hard when he offered to help take care of her since then.

"You look like shit, Eddie."

He did. He hadn't shaved in days, and his hair was wild.

"And you're beautiful as always, Mrs. Chen."

Lies. She was ghost white and thinner than he'd ever seen her. But that was how this new world worked these days. On lies. On stories about how people were moving on, that it was possible, and that somehow they should figure out how to do it too.

"I'll be back later," he said, reaching for his keys. "Call me if you need anything."

She didn't respond. She never called.

Eddie walked out the door.

* * *

 

There was a memorial for those who'd been lost, a memorial that listed every single person in San Francisco who'd been snapped away. Anne and Dan's names were there. More friends than he could count were there too.

But one name wasn't, the most important name to him, and it was why Eddie frequently found himself standing on the same corner where The Snap had happened for him. Those who lived in the area were used to him by now. It wasn't uncommon for people to linger in old Snap places. This was his. Mrs. Chen's had been right outside her store while she was telling a bad customer off. People lingered.

Eddie came when his thoughts were at their worst, and he felt more alone than usual.

The sun was still taking its sweet time coming up over the horizon, the chill curling around his skin, but Eddie didn't care. He only sat on the bench he'd bribed some guy to place there for him. He stared at the spot Venom had separated from him to save his life. He listened to the silence and invited it to take Venom's voice and speak to him. Verbally. In his mind. It didn't fucking matter.

In the sunlight, he stared at his hand, remembered how he'd been just a little too slow. How that last bit of Venom had faded into nothing but dust, _right there_. Eddie hadn't been able to wash that hand for a week. It had been a year before he could look at it without shaking. He stared at it quietly now, a ritual if anything else. Where once it had depressed him to no end, now it almost stabilized him. Reminded him that it had all been real.

Venom _had_ been real. And he'd been his.

"Never know what you've got until it's gone," he muttered to himself before dropping his hand and slumping. "Eddie, you idiot."

He knew he'd leave here more depressed than anything, but for now, it was all right. He wanted this. Wanted to remember and feel. It wouldn't last forever. Sure, it had lasted this long, but even his memory struggled sometimes to remember the details. He wanted to remember as long as he could. He didn't want to move on. Not yet.

His heart squeezed. He didn't want to move on at all.

The sun continued to rise. Eddie continued to sit there. When he got hungry, he pulled out the tiny bag of M&M's from his pocket and snacked on them without tasting them. Remembered how much Venom had liked them. Soon others were walking by, some familiar, some not. He didn't move. Just continued to wait until he couldn't take it anymore. Wait until it was time. Wait until he was hungry, though he was never really hungry. Not anymore.

A bird chirped beside him sometime after lunch, and he blinked because ... when did that bird get there? He hadn't seen it land, and he was sure he'd have heard it. But ... no. No, he couldn't remember hearing. Couldn't remember even seeing where it had come from. It was just ... there.

Suddenly, all around him, it felt like there was a wave of activity. So much noise. People bumped into him, the area crowded in a way that it never was, and on the faces of people all around him were looks of fear and confusion. Bewilderment. People stumbled and fell, some gave aborted screams before staggering to the side of the road, clinging to the nearest person. Hands grabbed the back of his bench, and he scowled at them because this was _his_ bench, and really, _where had all these people come from?_

Then Eddie felt it. The _hunger_. That unquenchable, gnawing hunger that never went away. Never died. Could _never_ be satisfied. A hunger the likes of which he hadn't felt in five long years.

Eddie froze. Then he staggered to his feet, trying to piece it all together, the answer impossible and all he could hope for. He grabbed the nearest woman.

"What year is it?" he asked, frantic. Her eyes went wide.

"2018," she replied.

"It's 2023," Eddie said, numb. "Oh, my God."

His body abruptly jerked, moved of its own accord and Eddie was incapable of understanding what he felt because _there was no way_. Five years. Thanos and The Snap. Half the population gone, half the population _here now again_.

**_Eddie_**.

Eddie lost it.

Unable to do anything except move, he ran into an abandoned alleyway, threw his back against the filthy brick wall and trembled, afraid and desperate in his need for hope.

"Venom?" he called out. "Venom, please, say something! Don't be a dream."

This time when Eddie stared at his hand, he watched glossy ink-black mass gather there. It flowed out of him, first slowly then like a surge and suddenly he was facing an impossible alien face he half-believed he'd never see again. Venom. It was Venom. He couldn't mistake the sudden change in his body like he was heavier but also stronger – so much stronger. He couldn't ignore the flood of emotions that weren't his. He couldn't ignore the way it felt like he was breathing for two. It was unmistakable, and yet he _could not believe it_.

But Venom's face was right there, hanging in the air before him, white eyes horrific, teeth impossibly sharp.

"You're back," Eddie sobbed, grabbing the goo by both sides of his ugly head as tears rained down his face. "Vee, you're back."

**"Eddie?"**

Confusion raged through Venom, along with fear and panic that were old hat Eddie had had five years to be terrorized by. The alien was disoriented, his hold on Eddie was painful, and Eddie _did not care_. He dug his fingers into Venom's gooey flesh, still half sure he was dreaming. That this wasn't real. That he'd finally, _finally_ gone insane.

He didn't even care if he had, because right now he had Venom back, and he didn't give a _damn_ about anything else.

Eddie pressed his brow to Venom's and kept crying. "You're back, you fucking _parasite_ , fuck you for letting me go."

**"Eddie,"** Venom said again, only this time the symbiote was in his mind, racing through thoughts and memories, years of them that Eddie had spent without Venom.

Alone.

Alarm and horror roared through the symbiote, and the black tendrils clinging to him held so tight Eddie couldn’t breathe.

**"Five years?"** Venom demanded, all but shaking him. **"Eddie—!"**

Eddie shut him up with a kiss.

Oh, how he'd dreamed of this. With nothing but time, he'd had to come to terms with the knot of emotions that had settled in his chest ever since Venom had been snapped away. Years to understand why he was more of a wreck than he'd ever been in his life, even after leaving New York. Even after losing Anne.

He hadn't realized just how much Venom meant to him. It had just been ... fun, back then. He'd been happy. For the first time in his life there was someone who'd gotten him, understood him, never left him alone and had made him smile, even if the alien had also driven him up the wall.

And then, during The Snap, Venom had sacrificed himself to save Eddie. He'd thought Eddie Brock's life was _worth_ it. That someone like him ... that Venom couldn't possibly let him die.

Warmth that had built in his chest for five long years and the desperate hope that _just maybe_ Venom would come back, even when there was nothing to suggest that would ever happen, burst out of him, and he didn't care that Venom was a symbiote and nothing more than sentient goo. He didn't care that Venom was an alien who could eat him if he was hungry enough. He didn't _care._

"I love you," Eddie sobbed into the kiss, not caring that his lips were bloody from Venom's sharp teeth. "I love you, and I missed you so much."

Now that the bond was between them, Eddie could finally _feel_ properly for the first time since The Snap. He felt right, with Venom's emotions pressing against his. He felt normal again, a part of a complex organism. He wasn't _alone_.

And although Venom was still confused by the five-year gap in memory they had, he knew exactly what to do with Eddie's emotions because that instant of vanishing, of surety that he was going to die had left a profound feeling in Venom. It didn't matter that it hadn't had the same time to mature. It had come fully developed in that one moment of dying _._

Inky blackness enveloped Eddie, held him close as Venom responded with the same need, the same vigor that was overwhelming Eddie because Venom had been close to losing Eddie too. They'd both come _so close_.

But Venom was back now. He was alive, and right where he belonged.

**_You're safe,_** Venom promised within his mind, even as that impossible tongue of his, the one Eddie had dreamed of, plundered his mouth relentlessly. **_You're safe, I'll never let you go again._**

Eddie moaned in relief, tears still leaking from his eyes as he touched the symbiote, grabbing handfuls of Venom wherever he could.

Eventually he needed to breathe, and he broke away. Now that the love had come out, the anger was quick too.

"You left me alone!"

**"I didn't want you to die too!"** the symbiote roared back. **"Stupid human, it could have taken us both!"**

"Then we would have gone together!" Eddie bared his teeth, thinking back on all the lonely nights, all his thoughts about Venom. "We're a team. Don't you ever do that again!"

**"I saved your life!"**

"I've been a mess!"

They were kissing each other again, this time more violently, and Eddie didn't care because he _needed_ this. They needed this. Five years, and this was what it had given them. Thanos had taken time from them, and they were only now getting a taste of what might have happened with that time back.

Eddie's pocket vibrated. His phone rang. He almost didn't realize, then almost didn't answer, except that he'd set that ring tone specifically so he'd know it was Mrs. Chen calling.

Venom pulled away, realizing almost before Eddie did what that meant.

**"Answer her!"**

His phone was already at his ear, heart racing.

"Mrs. Chen—!"

"He's back, Eddie," she sobbed, her voice breaking over the line. "My husband, he's back, he's here now—I think they're all back! Eddie—"

"I got him back," he said quickly, his own voice shattering at the admission, his throat so tight he couldn't stand it. "Venom, he's back too—"

Mrs. Chen was sobbing harder, and in the background he could hear someone, a man, speaking Mandarin to her, trying to soothe her, and a moment later the line cut off. Tears rolled out of his eyes again, and he watched as his phone began lighting up with messages, with phone calls, the names of people he'd thought he'd never get to see or speak to again racing across his screen like the worst and best kind of Rolodex.

"Everyone's back," he whispered, body shaking with adrenaline and unbridled happiness. "You're all back."

**"But how—?"**

"Doesn't matter," Eddie said fiercely, attention on Venom, right where he wanted it. "You're here again, _that's_ what matters. And thank God to whoever or whatever fixed this. I can't ever thank them enough."

The calls and messages kept coming. He saw Anne's and Dan's numbers multiple times, but he couldn't answer them. Not yet. Not when all he could do was touch Venom because this couldn't possibly be real. It couldn't.

But it was. He was back. And against all the odds, they were together again.

And Eddie would do whatever he had to do to make sure it stayed that way.

**Author's Note:**

> You made it to the end! Blankets and hot chocolate are on the table over there, please wait with your pitchforks and torches until I'm done, thank you thank you :]
> 
> So I never like leaving a story on a low point. Like. I never do that, and frankly I don't intend on leaving this one like this either. I have every intention of writing the reunion after the next Avengers movie is out so I can write something that could slide right into canon. So let's all think of this piece as TBC until then. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed? it!
> 
> You can follow me for more of my Venom content on [my tumblr](https://symbrock-darling.tumblr.com/). I'm taking prompt requests there too, so if you have one, feel free to send an ask!


End file.
